by Harmon, Amy
“Bayr grew so quickly,” he mourned. “With abilities and strength like he has, it makes sense that he would quickly gain confidence. Confidence and independence go hand in hand. But I look back on the days when he was a newborn babe, when I had to hold him all night to keep him from crying, and I long for that time. There will never be a night like that again.”
“No,” she whispered, remembering the days after Alba’s birth. “There never will be.”
She felt the tremor of a building grief in his chest and could no longer keep silent.
“Why, Dagmar? Why did you let him go?” she asked, not understanding. “Why did you not keep him here, with us?”
He was suddenly striding for the altar, dragging her behind him like he had to escape, like he had to be free of the incense and the candles, the guilt and the grief. Beyond the altar was a wall that shifted and became a door, and when they stepped inside, he closed it again. The scrape of stone on stone was the only warning before darkness closed around them. Dagmar didn’t slow, and he didn’t explain. He just pulled her forward as though the lack of light was of no consequence. The passage smelled of earth and time and tenuous breath, and she didn’t ask where they were going or how long it would take to arrive. She simply clung to his hand and reveled in the contact, trusting that they would reach the other end, yet hardly caring if they ever did.
They walked in silence for a dark eternity, hand in hand until the ground rose and the scent shifted, becoming grassy and open, the fragrance of air and space. Then Dagmar released her hand and unlatched another door, inviting the light of the moon to wash over them as they stepped out onto the hillside, the temple mount above them, the King’s Village below.
“There are some secrets that can only be shared out of doors, beyond walls. I can’t take the chance that they will linger to be heard again,” he murmured, his voice so low Ghost had to lean into him to capture his words.
“Twenty years ago, when I was the same age as Bayr is now, I left Dolphys for the temple. I was so confident. So sure. I knew where I belonged. Now I am fleeing the temple because I know nothing. I am powerless. Unsure. And my heart is, at this moment, traveling back to Dolphys.”
He paused, his eyes straying to the east, and Ghost knew he had not fled the temple to kiss her lips or lie with her in the grass. He had fled the walls because he wanted to follow after Bayr, and he needed Ghost to make him stay. The secrets he had to tell were not sweet professions of love or lust. He was a man weighed down by longing, but not longing for her.
“Bayr is the king’s son. He is Banruud’s son,” he whispered, and his tears began to fall.
The breath fled from her lungs and her vision swam. She must have swayed in her surprise, because Dagmar pulled her down to the grass, enfolding her in his arms as though he feared she would run away and he would be left to carry his burden alone.
“Oh, Dagmar,” she gasped.
He collapsed into her, his head in her lap, his arms encircling her waist, and she caressed the shadowy growth of hair that covered his head.
“Bayr does not know,” he wept, and she wept with him.
“And the king?”
He shook his head, helpless, unsure. “My father claimed Bayr as Desdemona’s son. The king is not a fool.”
“You must tell me everything from the beginning,” she begged, and after a brief hesitation, he relented, his words tripping like smooth stones, making hardly a ripple before they sank beneath the surface of the soft night.
“When my sister died . . . she drew two blood runes. Runes she should not have known. One of them required her life in exchange. But she was already dying. And she was angry, bitter. She cursed all the men of Saylok. She said there would be no girl children, no women for such men to love. She cursed Banruud by name.”
“How?” she pressed.
“She said Bayr would be his only son, his only child. In the second rune, she said Bayr would be powerful, so powerful that he would save Saylok, yet his father would reject him.”
“His only child,” Ghost whispered. She wanted to tell him her story, but the words were too heavy and she’d buried them too deep to unearth them so suddenly.
“The runes are not all-powerful. Clearly. Banruud has another child. A daughter. He has Alba. Yet . . . the curse continues. The power of my sister’s blood rune persists. I don’t know how to break it or if it can be broken.”
“Have you told Ivo . . . of the runes?”
“No,” he breathed. “I can’t.”
“You must. He will know what to do.” She bore down against the bile of her own hypocrisy.
“I can’t,” Dagmar insisted again, and she waited, her hand stroking his head, hoping he would share his reasons, that he would trust her. Mayhaps if he trusted her, she could trust him. If he could keep Desdemona’s secrets, he could keep hers as well.
Then Dagmar sat up so he could look down into her face, and Ghost saw herself mirrored in the glassy fear of his gaze.
“If Ivo knows, he will be forced to act. As Highest Keeper he will do—he must do—whatever is necessary to destroy the power of Desdemona’s rune,” Dagmar insisted. “And I cannot take that risk.”
“But . . . is that not . . . what you want?” Ghost asked.
“What if Bayr is the only one who can break the curse?” Dagmar asked, sorrow deepening his tone.
Ghost stared at him, not understanding, and his guilt and grief were terrible to behold.
“What do you mean?”
“Bayr’s birth marked the beginning of the drought. What if his death marks the end?”
20
Bayr had lived his whole life on the temple mount. He’d never gone farther than the King’s Village, never explored the lands beyond the Temple Wood or climbed higher than the temple spires.
He’d taught Alba to swim in the springs tucked back among the caves on the sheer north side of Temple Hill, showed her all the secret tunnels, the hidden passageways, the best caves, and the highest trees. But his world had been a mountain that rose in the heart of a land he’d never explored, and he was eager to see what lay beyond, on every side.
He’d never seen the pebbled beaches of Ebba or climbed the peaks of Shinway in Dolphys. He’d never seen the trees in Berne, trees so massive a bear could make a home in their branches. He’d never seen winter in Adyar, though he’d been told the icicles could impale a man if he walked beneath them. He’d never seen the lush farmlands of Joran or the whales off the shores of Leok. Liis claimed everything was big in Leok. The men, the boats, the beasts, the storms. Bayr wanted to see it all. Yet as he rode away from the temple mount on a horse that wasn’t his, his grandfather beside him, a handful of grim-faced and grizzled warriors around him, he wanted nothing more than to return.
It was better that he struggled with speech, that words felt like bands around his tongue. If he’d been able to voice his feelings, they would have poured from his mouth the way the grief threatened to slip from his eyes. He wanted to cry for Dagmar because he knew Dagmar cried for him. He wanted to sob his frustration at the hateful king; Bayr had no doubt Banruud was the impetus for his expulsion. He wanted to wail for Alba, who was now completely at the king’s mercy, now at the mercy of the tired, the busy, and the weak. No one would care for her as Bayr had. No one would love her as he did.
But Bayr could not weep among the warriors of Dolphys, so he prayed instead, beseeching Odin, Thor, and Freya to guard Alba from the ambitions of her father and the indifference of the keepers. Bayr had been seven years old when he had become her protector. Alba was seven now. Bayr’s childhood had been as fleeting as hers would be. He prayed she would be wise. Shrewd. That she would see the world as it was and not as she wished it would be, if only to better shield herself from the forces around her. His last plea to Dagmar had been for Alba’s protection, and Dagmar had given his word. His prayers and private thoughts were interrupted by the redheaded Dakin, who rode on his right side.
“You’re b
lack and blue. Someone put his hands on you, Temple Boy,” Dakin said. Dakin’s horse whinnied and shook his mane as though to say, “What a shame. What a shame.”
Bayr said nothing, but Dred, who rode ahead of him, turned in his saddle and eyed him, waiting for a response. When he said nothing, Dred explained.
“It doesn’t give the men much confidence in your strength or abilities. They are worried that the tales about you are just that. Tales,” Dred said. Dakin grunted in agreement.
“I h-have n-never t-told t-tales,” Bayr stammered.
“Others have,” young Daniel piped up from behind them, and the men he had not yet been introduced to nodded and mumbled among themselves.
“At the tournament, I saw him lose to the bowman from Ebba,” a warrior grunted. “He’s good . . . but he’s not the best archer. He can throw an axe with incredible force, but his aim is not without match. There are other warriors just as skilled.”
“I saw him win the footrace,” Daniel admitted. “But I doubt he could run for a great distance.”
Bayr sighed. He could run for miles, but he said nothing. He didn’t care whether Daniel believed it or not.
“He bested Lothgar of Leok in the circle. Lothgar has never lost before,” Dred said, his eyes forward, his tone filled with warning.
“’Tis one thing to wrestle a man in the circle, to triumph in a contest of strength or even skill. It is another to face a village of swords or a man intent on killing you,” Dakin answered.
“You said you’d never seen his like,” Dred growled. “What is this game, Dakin?”
“I haven’t. He is a boy who has the strength and size of a man—many men. He belongs in Dolphys. I welcome him. He will be a credit to the clan. But he should not be chieftain,” Dakin said, blunt.
Bayr agreed but kept quiet.
“Would you have stood for me?” Dred asked, eyeing each one of his men. “Would I have had your support as chieftain?”
“Aye,” Dakin answered, and the other men quickly added their ayes, gazes steady, nods firm.
“Then I ask you to speak for Bayr,” Dred said. “To stand with him . . . for me.”
“He is a stranger. The people will challenge him with tasks that will only succeed in getting him killed. We could all speak for him . . . and it wouldn’t be enough.” Dakin’s voice was mild, kind even, and Dred’s chin dropped to his chest and his shoulders slumped in brief dejection. Bayr wished he’d held firm and stayed on the temple mount.
“I will not speak for him, Dred . . . but I will not challenge him either,” Dakin added softly.
“Nor will I.” A warrior with deep-set eyes and cheekbones as sharp as the temple spires spoke up from the rear. “He can make his claim uncontested. I’ll not stand in his way.” Bayr had seen him on the field of the melee and again on the night of the feast. The man was almost as quiet as Bayr, but he seemed to hold Dred in high regard.
“Dakin. Dystel. My gratitude,” Dred murmured gruffly, and Bayr made note of the second man’s name.
“And the rest of you? What say you? Will you challenge him now that I have withdrawn my claim?” Dred asked the men who traveled in surly silence beside him.
“I’d never be chosen,” Daniel said simply, shrugging. “It matters not to me if the Temple Boy wants to kill himself trying to become the Dolphys.” The people of Saylok often referred to a chieftain by the name of his clan—the Adyar, the Leok, the Joran. The people of Dolphys were no different.
Dystel lashed out and pushed the boy so hard he almost fell from his mount. The others laughed, Daniel swore, and the warriors, all ranging in size and age, gave their consent.
“If Dakin and Dystel don’t contest, none of us will either. They have the most claim, Dred.” The man who spoke was completely bald like a keeper. He wore a wolf pelt for a hat, the teeth and snout sitting on his forehead as though his face was about to be eaten whole. The bushy tail had been cut into strips and plaited to give him a warrior’s braid.
“So be it,” Dred agreed, his eyes resting briefly on each man. “Then let us see what the people have to say.”
They rode for almost two days, resting for brief stretches by rivers and streams. Water was plentiful in Dolphys, rocks too, but farmland was scarce. Dolphynians grew crops that didn’t need much land—potatoes were a staple. Some farmed, some hunted; some fought, some fished. There were traders and trappers and miners and millers, and in the biggest valley, where the chieftain’s keep and the holdings of the clan were concentrated, there was a little of everything.
To Bayr, life in Dolphys didn’t appear much different from life in the King’s Village, a life common in any of the other clans, though the land of Dolphys was formed of peaks and vales, rocks and crags, and Bayr imagined that if he climbed Shinway Peak, her highest point, he might be able to see all the way to the temple mount, ringed with clouds in the far distance.
When he asked his grandfather, Dred shrugged his shoulders and said, “I’ve never looked. You’d best not look back either, Bayr.”
When they began to drop into the valley, tired and saddle sore, Dred held back and urged the other men to ride ahead and warn the village.
“You will tell them we’re coming,” he informed Dakin. “You will tell all in the fortress what has transpired. You will tell them I have brought my grandson back to Dolphys to make a bid for the chiefdom.”
Dakin nodded, his eyes lingering on Bayr. “It is better not to wait, boy. You are weary. But they won’t let you rest. May Thor lend you his strength and Odin’s hounds guard your back.”
Dakin tugged at his long red braid in a show of respect and spurred his horse forward. The other men followed, ready for their journey to be over, eager to spread the news.
Dred watched them go before he turned to Bayr. The lines across his brow and bracketing his grim mouth had grown more pronounced as he’d neared his home. Bayr had tried not to feel anything at all. The land was harsh, the men he traveled with even more so, and though the landscape had drawn his eye, it felt foreign and cold. He felt foreign and cold. The only warmth in him was the rage in his belly—disgust at his weakness, fury at his circumstance, frustration at the choices he’d not been given.
“Being the chieftain of a people you’ve never lived among won’t be easy, but I promise you it will be easier than what is about to transpire. You will have to impress them, Bayr. They’ve all heard of the Temple Boy. Dakin said you’re a stranger, but you’re not. You’re a fireside tale. And that might make it even harder. They won’t care that you are fourteen years old—barely a man. They’ll expect greatness. They’ll expect Thor. And you must give it to them.”
Bayr gritted his teeth against the impotence that welled behind his eyes and raged to break free. He had not asked to be chieftain. He did not want to be chieftain. Yet he was going to try. He was going to kneel and grab his braid. He would make a vow. He would bleed and suffer and do what they asked. None of it was what he wanted. But he would do it, nonetheless.
“They’ll not like your name,” Dred continued. “It is of Berne, not Dolphys. I’ll not take it from you. Your mother gave it to you. But they might try to change it. I’ll let you decide if it’s worth the battle.”
Bayr scrubbed at his face, willing calm, fighting despair.
“Are you ready?” Dred asked.
Bayr shook his head. How could he answer such a question?
Dred reached over and touched his shoulder, encouraging him to raise his head, but he couldn’t.
“This is not a world where a man or woman gets much choice in their happiness. We are born into war and each day is a battle.” Dred paused and tightened his hand on Bayr’s shoulder. “My son knew what he wanted. My daughter too. But I didn’t listen. I was too afraid I couldn’t give it to them.” Dred’s voice had grown thin with heavy regret, and he shook his head as though he had no idea how to continue. After a few moments, he took a deep breath and let it out in a long, shuddering sigh.
“What
is it you want, Bayr? If you want to go . . . I’ll go with you. Wherever it is. I’ve spent all my life wanting something I couldn’t ever put a name to. I thought it was power, but I realize now . . . it was posterity. I thought I wanted to be chieftain. Then suddenly Odin opened his hand and there you were, right in front of me.”
“I want to protect,” Bayr answered without thought or hesitation. It had always been the single-minded purpose of his young life. “I w-want to protect Saylok and the temple. I w-want to protect the princess and the d-daughters of the clans. I want to protect D-Dagmar and the k-keepers.”
“You want to protect those you love.”
Bayr nodded, a short, hard jerk of his head. He wanted to protect those he loved and instead he’d been taken—sent—from them.
Dred was silent for a moment, studying him, and his eyes were soft in his hard face.
“If you stay here . . . you will grow to love Dolphys. She is harsh and hard to hold on to, but once she gets in your heart, she won’t let go. And her people are the same. You will learn to love these people, and you will protect them too.”
Bayr’s anger began to evaporate in the midmorning sunlight, and he looked again on the valley of Dolphys and saw her with new eyes. He didn’t want to lead. But mayhaps he could serve. Mayhaps it was the same thing.
“I know you didn’t choose this, Bayr. But I will help you. I will be your right hand and your left. I’ll watch your back and I’ll guard your heart. I’ll give you every last breath I can give. All of me. Everything I know. Everything I am. It is yours.”
“Everything?” Bayr whispered, releasing his doubt and girding his faith.
“Everything,” Dred promised.
“Do you h-have something I c-could eat?”
Dred’s brow wrinkled in question.
Bayr smiled and reached over to tug at his grandfather’s braid. “I c-can’t do battle on an e-empty st-stomach.”